Vehicles may be manufactured for export to a variety of countries. Virtually all countries in the world impose vehicle licensing requirements, including the placement of a government-issued registration tag upon a licensed vehicle, commonly referred to as a license plate. License plates are typically attached to the rear ends of vehicles, usually on relatively broad, flat surface such as a specifically designated place on the vehicle's bumper, just above the bumper on a rear panel, or on or just below the trunk or boot lid. Vehicles commonly are equipped with a plain, broad, flat surface specifically sized to accommodate differing license plates from various jurisdictions. License plates are commonly affixed to vehicles using several screws or bolts.
One approach that is commonly used is to supply an intermediate adapter bracket. The adapter bracket attaches to a series of holes in the vehicle drilled at predetermined locations, and in turn is sized to accept plates from a specific jurisdiction. However, different sizes of the adapter bracket will need to be made for the vehicles in different jurisdiction, which increases manufacturing costs such as the need for different tooling.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,772,545 to Hashim et al. discloses a universal license plate holder that can be adjusted to accommodate license plates of various sizes. The holder is comprised of a pair of attachment brackets that are in turn connected together with a cross-bar. Each attachment bracket is secured to a vehicle via a mounting fastener which, when loose, forms a pivot point for its respective attachment bracket. The cross-bar likewise is attached to each attachment bracket at a pivot point, and so rotation of one bracket causes to other bracket to likewise rotate, with the cross-bar keeping each bracket in an appropriate relative position to the other bracket to accommodate various sizes of license plates. Spacing for a given license plate is accomplished by rotating the brackets. However, the inventor has recognized that the license plate holder does not have preset positions for different license plates and thus a user needs to rotate the brackets or the cross-bar to find a position to fit his/her license plate, which can be time consuming and even difficult to find the best position for the license plate.